Stop the Seeking Cycle

Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, Jerusalem

Mammals are wired to look for novelty in the environment, a behavior called "seeking." Your brain is wired to seek and it gets a dopamine hit each time it does. Dopamine is the same neurotransmitter stimulated by drugs like cocaine and speed. It makes you feel focused, energized, and good at first, but after a while you just feel stressed, sketchy, and burnt out. 

The complement to the seeking system is the reward system. Finding the object of seeking, such as food, sex, or shopping sprees, creates opiates - the drugs that calm you down, make you blissful, and unwilling to seek. The opiates counterbalance the seeking, and keep it from getting caught in an endless cycle. The trouble is that evolution did not favor animals that sat around all fat and happy - they were probably the first to become dinner for those others who kept seeking. This means that the system is rigged: there is much more desire to seek than to be rewarded. We would rather look than actually find.

Our ancestors evolved in a world where almost nothing interesting ever happened (lots and lots and lots of quiet time). But now we live in an environment with an endless supply of intense novel stimuli - books, movies, television, music, internet, texting. Our brains are so full! We are stuffed beyond the limit but can't stop pressing the seek button. It keeps us trapped in an unsatisfying loop of always wanting and never being satisfied. 

But there's a way out: Every so often take a break from new information. Our brains require some real down time. Down time doesn't mean watching Netflix (which is just a bunch of emotional stimulation and more novelty seeking) or hanging with friends. Down time means deeply quiet, really simple, totally open time in which you are not working, accomplishing anything, or taking in new information. Down time means staring at trees, or strolling aimlessly in a forest. Even in the city, it's not hard to just kick back and watch the sky. If this sounds boring, that's the idea. Give yourself a break from doing, thinking, working, judging, evaluating. Let yourself get bored!

- Michael Taft, "Downtime for the Stone Age Brain"

Down Time for Your Brain

Tomales Bay, Inverness, CA. By Della Chen

Meditation was invented around 500 BC. Before that, people had little need for it. Life had been simple enough to allow the brain the down time it needed. But with the construction of modern societies, people's ability to cope with the novelty overload they were experiencing began to break down. The Buddha said that suffering was caused by "desire" and "seeking." Seeking causes suffering. Because it never ends! As soon as you get one thing, you crave more or you want to make sure that thing won't go away. To combat this affliction of modernity, the Buddha prescribed meditation. 

There are many misunderstandings about it. Some people think it means sitting with your legs crossed and trying not to think. But that's impossible! Your brain's job is to think -- it's not going to stop. Meditation is more about just sitting there without doing anything on purpose. It is essentially getting out of the way, and allowing the brain eventually to revert to its natural state - the state your brain evolved to be in most of the time. A kind of alert, relaxed openness. Not thinking about anything in particular, but not striving to remove thinking either. Not seeking, in other words. 

Meditation is, in a sense, unnatural. Cavemen didn't sit around meditating. They didn't need to, because everything was much slower, spacious, and gentle. It was low impact on the brain. But with the rise of modern society (India at 500 BC), people couldn't find enough down time to return their minds to a natural state. There was too much novelty, too many new ideas, too much cool stuff to do, talk about, and see. So we can think of meditation as an unnatural way to return to a natural state. 

Our brains need down time. Your quality of life will skyrocket. The majority of interesting, exciting, novel stimuli you're getting are probably composed of empty calories anyway. So go walk in the park, sit in the tub, watch the trees sway outside your window. And try meditating. There are many apps to help with this and meditation centers popping up. Or ask me for some more ideas! 

PS Watching TV is not down time for your brain. It's actually a stimulant. Sorry, guys. 

- Michael Taft, "Downtime for the Stone Age Brain"

Hardwiring Happiness: Build Your Inner Strengths

Hillside Avenue, Mill Valley, CA

What you have in your bag as you make your way down the twisting road of life are your inner strengths. They include positive mood, common sense, self-compassion, integrity, inner peace, determination, self-esteem, and a warm heart. Strengths can be skills, perspectives and qualities and also positive feelings such as calm, contentment and caring. One third of our strengths we're born with and two thirds are developed. You get them by growing them. Great news! That means we can develop the happiness and other inner strengths that foster fulfillment, love and inner peace. But how?? Read on ...

This series is extracted from Rick Hanson's highly recommended book, "Hardwiring Happiness." Please refer there for more information. 

Hardwiring Happiness: Let Be, Let Go, Let In

Photo in her home by Gayle Smith

Imagine that your mind is like a garden. You can simply be with it, looking at its weeds and flowers without judging or changing anything. Second, you can pull weeds by decreasing what's negative in your mind. Third, you can grow flowers by increasing the positive in your mind. In essence, you can manage your mind in three primary ways: let be, let go, let in. 

LET BE

Letting your mind be, simply observing your experience, gives you relief and perspective. It's like stepping out of a movie screen and watching from twenty rows back. You can explore your experience with interest and (hopefully) kindness toward yourself, and perhaps connect with softer, more vulnerable, and possibly younger layers in your mind. In the light of an accepting, nonreactive awareness, your negative thoughts and feelings can sometimes melt away like morning mists on a sunny day. 

LET GO

Think of all the stuff - physical & nonphysical - we cling to that creates problems for us and others: "shoulds," rigid opinions, resentments, regrets, status, guilt, the past, bad habits. Letting go is a conscious choice to not buy into thoughts that cause suffering, to let go of tension in your body, to surrender to the way it is as opposed to the way you want it to be, to accept the constantly changing and impermanent nature of life, to snap out of a self-centered view and broaden perspective into the wider world. Remember that this requires a conscious choice to make these efforts and you may have to go against your natural instincts at first. 

"If you let go a little you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely you will have complete peace." - Ajahn Chah

LET IN

As you can see, just being with your mind may not be enough. You also need to work with it, making wise efforts, pulling weeds and growing flowers. You can't expect these inner strengths to spring into being on their own. There need to be active, goal-directed efforts to nudge your mind one way or another. The following posts will focus on Letting In ... 

Here is a helpful article by Rick Hanson on letting go of bodily sensations, thoughts, emotions, wants, and of the self. 

Hardwiring Happiness: Grow Goodness in Your Mind

Richard Diebenkorn, "Woman on a Porch"

The brain is the organ that learns, so it is designed to be changed by your experiences. Amazing! Whatever we repeatedly sense & feel & want & think is slowly but surely sculpting our neural structure. Prolonged, repeated mental/neural activity - especially if it's conscious - will leave an enduring imprint in neural structure, like a surging current reshaping a riverbed. 

The brain takes its shape from what the mind rests upon. If you keep resting your mind on self-criticism, worries, hurts, comparisons, then your brain will be shaped into anxiety, depression, anger, sadness. On the other hand, if you keep resting your mind on good events and conditions, pleasant feelings, natural pleasures, positive things, moments & people in your life, then over time your brain will take a different shape - one with optimism, a positive mood, a sense of worth, strength & resilience.

What you choose to pay attention to - what you rest your mind on - is the primary shaper of your brain. And, on the whole, you have a lot of influence over where your mind rests. 

Hardwiring Happiness: Install Positive Experiences

 Eduardo Garcia, "The Wave," Cuba

Here's the catch: In order to transfer positive experiences from short-term memory into long-term storage, you have to install them in the brain. Otherwise beneficial experiences, such as feeling cared about, are momentarily pleasant but have no lasting value. Meanwhile, because of negativity bias, your brain is rapidly & effectively turning unpleasant, negative experiences - feeling stressed, inadequate, hurt - into neural structure. 

So ... in order to install positive experiences into your brain: 

1. Look for good facts and turn them into good experiences.

• This can include positive events or positive aspects of yourself and of the world - the taste of good coffee, getting an unexpected compliment, a beautiful sunset. 
• Try to do this at least a half dozen times a day. There are lots of opportunities and it takes about 30 seconds. You can do it on the fly in daily life or at special times of reflection. 
• Notice any reluctance to feeling good - such as thinking that you don't deserve it, or that it's selfish. Or that if you feel good, you will lower your guard and let bad things happen. 
• Barriers to feeling good are common & understandable - but they get in the way. So acknowledge them to yourself and then turn your attention back to the good news. Keep opening up to it, breathing & relaxing, letting the good facts affect you. 

2. Really enjoy the experience. 

• Most of the time, a good experience is pretty mild, and that's fine. But try to stay with it for 20-30 seconds in a row - instead of getting distracted by something else. 
• Sense that it is filling your body, becoming a rich experience. The longer that something is held in awareness and the more emotionally stimulating it is, the stronger it becomes in your memory. 
• By doing this, you will increasingly feel less fragile or needy inside, and less dependent on external supplies. Your happiness and love will become more unconditional, based on an inner fullness rather than on whether the momentary facts in your life happen to be good ones. 

3. Intend & sense that the good experience is sinking into you. 

• People do this in different ways. Some feel it in their body like a warm glow spreading through their chest, the warmth of hot cocoa on a cold day. Others visualize things like a golden syrup sinking down inside, bringing good feelings and soothing old places of hurt. Or you can try feeling like a sponge absorbing the experience deep into your bones. 
• Any single time you do this will make only a little difference. But over time those little differences will add up, gradually weaving positive experiences into the fabric of your brain and your self. 

For more, please check out Rick Hanson's ample & freely-offered writings on these topics. 

Father Hunger

Viviane Sassen, "DNA"

Surprisingly, I have not been able to find much about this topic on the internet, but I see its effects frequently in my office. People struggle with similar types of issues, not realizing the possible link to their fathers. This will be a brief overview with a lot of concepts and I will include a link to more resources at the end. 

A lack of contact with and knowledge of their father leaves children with a gaping hole in their soul, best described as "father hunger" (Erickson, 1998). This natural longing, if left unfulfilled, too often dooms people to relentless personal & professional dead ends in an effort to fill that hole. This usually shows up in different ways that seem unrelated to father loss: food to fill the hole; workaholism in an attempt to run away from the hole; alcoholism or drug abuse to deaden the ache from it; depression from the pain of it; the thrill of sexual promiscuity to distract from the throbbing hurt of it; or violence to act it out or to seal it over. 

All father hunger springs from one main source: desertion. There are seven specific causes of father loss: death, divorce, single mothering, adoption, addiction, abuse and emotionally unavailable fathering. You could grow up in the same house with your dad and still experience father hunger. Some common experiences amongst people who grow up disconnected from their fathers include decreased self-esteem, fear of abandonment, fears of being alone, problems with trusting, problems managing emotions. 

Feeling Responses: 

• Denial of emotions - "I don't want to feel what I truly feel"
• Ambivalent connections - "Come here, go away"
• Displaced anger - Smoldering under the surface & then exploding out of proportion
• Flat feelings - Feeling numb inside
• Feeling undeserving - Always seeking validation from others

Behavioral Responses:

• Difficulty making commitments - Fear of being alone, but terrified of losing relationship or getting hurt, so avoid intimacy
• Choosing partners who will deny emotions and problems - In order to stay in denial
• Denies needs - Keeps vulnerability hidden
• Fearing loss of control - Fear of being hurt or abandoned again (always comes back to this)
• Competitiveness - Trying to prove their worth; prove they'll never need anyone; trying to win affection or approval

Does any of this resonate for you?

For more, read the informative, "Longing for Dad: Father Loss and Its Impact" by Beth Erickson. 

How to be Happy

Blake Spalding at Korakia by Della Chen

For years, the field of psychology has devoted itself to helping miserable people not be miserable. While this is wonderful, we know that Not Being Miserable is different than Being Happy. So in the last ten years, we've seen the beginnings of a science of positive psychology - a science of what makes life worth living. 

It turns out that we can measure different forms of happiness and figure out what helps happy people stay happy:

Positive Emotion: The ability to be optimistic and view the past, present, and future in a positive perspective. Having a sense of humor. Not taking things too personally. Enjoying yourself in the present moment. Gratitude, satisfaction, pleasure, inspiration, hope, curiosity, love. 

Relationships: Social connections are one of the most important aspects of life. Humans are social animals who thrive for connection, love, intimacy, and a strong emotional and physical interaction with other humans. Having strong relationships gives you support in difficult times. 

Engagement: It is important in our lives to be able to find activities that take our full engagement. Everyone is different and we all find enjoyment in different things, whether it's playing an instrument, playing a sport, dancing, working on an interesting project or some other activity. We all need something in our lives that entirely absorbs us into the present moment, creating a "flow" of blissful immersion into the task or activity. Flow feels good - smooth, masterful, concentrated calm. It gets us out of our heads and into pure experience.  

Meaning: Having a purpose and meaning to why each of us are on this earth is important to living a life of happiness and fulfillment. There is more to our lives than the pursuit of pleasure and material wealth. Getting out of our habitual self-absorbed ways of thinking and being of service to other people can help us find that meaning.

Creativity: Creativity is not limited only in the field of artistic achievement. Creativity can be the ability to adapt to new environments, to be open to new ideas, to employ problem-solving & coping skills. Curiosity, or finding topics fascinating and exploring or discovering them for the sake of learning/experiencing, is part of living a creative life. 

Novelty: Even though people typically seek control in their lives, novelty & challenge actually bring happiness. In an interesting paradox, the pursuit of happiness might not always feel good. But people who do new things -- travel to new places, learn new skills, expose themselves to the unfamiliar -- have a greater sense of well-being than people who stick to their same known worlds and routines. 

Everything Does Not "Happen For a Reason"

"Exquisite Corpse," by Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, Joan Miro & Max Morise

"Grief is brutally painful. Grief does not only occur when someone dies. When relationships fall apart, you grieve. When opportunities are shattered, you grieve. When dreams die, you grieve. When illnesses wreck you, you grieve.

So I’m going to repeat a few words I’ve uttered countless times:

Some things in life cannot be fixed. They can only be carried." 

- Tim Lawrence 

Read more here

Suffering = Pain x Resistance

"Spectres," Eva Hesse

Suffering comes when we compare our reality to our ideals. When reality matches our wants and desires, we're happy and satisfied. When reality doesn't match our wants and desires, we suffer. Of course, there's no way our reality will completely match our ideals 100 percent of the time. That's why suffering is so ubiquitous. 

The key to happiness is understanding that suffering is caused by resisting pain. We can't avoid pain in life, but we don't necessarily have to suffer because of that pain. Suffering is the mental anguish caused by fighting against the fact that life is sometimes painful.

 Our emotional suffering is caused by our desire for things to be other than they are. The more we resist the fact of what is happening right now, the more we suffer. If you allow pain to just be there, freely, it will eventually dissipate on its own. If you fight and resist the pain, however, the pressure will grow and grow until there is an explosion. 

This is how things are. 

You can either choose to accept this fact or not, but reality will remain the same either way. 

- Kristin Neff, "Self Compassion"

Confronting the Negativity Bias

Robert Frank, "Canal Street - New Orleans, 1955"

Evolution has given us a brain with what scientists call a "negativity bias," which makes it prone to feeling threatened. This bias developed because the early humans who were mellow and fearless and who did not notice the shadow overhead or the slither nearby are the ones who got chomped. The ones that survived to pass on their genes were nervous and cranky, and we are their great-grandchildren, sitting atop the food chain.

Your brain is continually looking for bad news. As soon as it finds some, it fixates on it with tunnel vision, fast-tracks it into memory storage, and then reactivates it at the least hint of anything even vaguely similar. But good news gets a kind of neutral shrug: "Eh, whatever." 

In effect, the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones.

So, for starters, be mindful of the degree to which your brain is wired to make you afraid, wired so that you walk around with an ongoing trickle of anxiety to keep you on alert. And wired to zero in on any apparent bad news in a larger stream of information (e.g., fixing on a casual aside from a family member or co-worker), to tune out or de-emphasize reassuring good news, and to keep thinking about the one thing that was negative in a day in which a hundred small things happened, ninety-nine of which were neutral or positive. 

Read more here

Finding Pleasure in the Ordinary

Afternoon light hitting water as it spews from sprinkler

Because of our brain's built-in negativity bias, we have to consciously make efforts to notice the positives. We vacuum up the smallest negative detail and overlook and take for granted the good things. To rebalance your brain, you have to actively seek anything that could remotely be positive and then soak it up into your system. It's nice to know that (1) we can change our brains and (2) there is endless opportunity to find good around us! 

Let good facts become good experiences. Notice positive events (someone is nice to you, you complete a task), conditions (flowers are blooming, chocolate tastes good), and qualities in yourself (I care about others) - and then let them affect you and become positive feelings, body sensations, and thoughts. 

Stay with the good experience 5, 10 even 30 seconds in a row. Let the experience fill your body and mind and be as intense as possible. 

Sense and intend that this good experience is sinking into you, like water into a sponge, becoming a resource inside you. Try to heighten the feeling as you absorb it -- maybe you feel a little warmth, a little tingle, a little lightness. That's exactly it! 

I'm talking about finding pleasure in even the smallest of ways. Every morning when I'm getting ready, I toss some tissue paper from across the room into the trash and laugh as I miss the can every time. One of these days I am going to make that basket and I am going to jump for joy!! That will be a great way to start my day, for real. 

Update: October 13, 2016. It happened! I made the basket. I hooted out loud and did a little jig. That was about it. Twenty minutes later, I got invited by a friend to join her in box seats at The Hollywood Bowl that night. Are these events connected? Probably not. However, I believe that because I purposefully seek out and seize moments like this to feel joy, I am wrapped in a state of positive energy. And it's because I am imbued with that positive energy, that opportunities like the Hollywood Bowl come my way. That's what I believe. 

Read more here

Be Unafraid of Your Interior Life

Edward Hopper, "Morning Sun"

What would you hear if you allowed yourself to be in silence? What are you afraid to hear? 

With so much external stimulation these days, it can be difficult to put the phone down, turn off the TV, quiet the chatter in our heads and tune into ourselves. However, it is by being comfortable in silence with ourselves, even for a seconds at a time, that we discover our personal power and tune into our inner voices. 

Start by resisting the urge to pick up your phone when you're at a red light or standing in the grocery line. Instead, take a breath and focus on the present moment -- the people you see around you, the colors, the light, the sounds you hear, the sensations in your body. What is happening in this moment?

You're experiencing the moment, rather than being disconnected. 

Congratulations - you just began practicing Mindfulness! 

Your Blind Spots?

My Public Self is what I know about myself and show to others.

My Hidden Self is what I know, but choose to hide from others.

My Unconscious Self are parts of me I do not see nor do others. 

My Blind Spots are parts of me others see but I do not. 

What might your blind spots be?

Are you curious what's under your conscious awareness? 

How would it feel to be more open with people? 

Can We Want What We Already Have?

Brigitte Bardot & Michel Piccoli in "Contempt"

Why does good sex so often fade even for couples who continue to love each other as much as ever? 

Why does good intimacy not guarantee good sex?

Can we want what we already have? 

Why is the forbidden so erotic? What is it about transgression that makes desire so potent? 

Why does sex make babies & babies spell erotic disaster in couples? 

When you love, how does it feel? And when you desire, how is it different? 

I'm a huge fan of Esther Perel, whose work explores these questions. If you're interested, start by listening to her Ted talk HERE.

Buddhism on Death Row

San Quentin State Prison

Last week I got to do couples therapy on Death Row at San Quentin State Prison.

Ocean was sentenced to death 25 years ago for a murder that occurred during a robbery at which he was not present (he was charged with "Intent to Kill"). It may sound crazy, but I've never seen Bianca more healthy and peaceful than she's been since dating Ocean for the last year. I saw the immense love between them and also felt the horrible pain and frustration of their situation. 

We talked about the relationship between pleasure and pain: How to accept & manage the reality of pain, while trying to enjoy pleasure without clinging or getting attached to it. What better place for Buddhism than inside a 5 x 10 foot cage surrounded by (alleged) murderers! 

They gave me permission to post this : )

Everything You Feel is OK

Give yourself permission to feel any combination of ways, even if they are contradictory. We're complicated beings and often have mixed and multiple feelings. We crave things we know are bad for us. We declare an opinion and then change our minds. Life is not black & white and can be chaotic & illogical. Experiment with letting the "shoulds" go and allow yourself to be and feel anything. Note: This does not give you permission to behave in any way - this is an exercise in acceptance of your feelings. 

EXAMPLES:

"You can feel angry and you can forgive. And you don't have to forgive." 

"You can want to be with him and not want to be with him." 

"You can feel confident except when you don't." 

"You can be open to therapy and be skeptical about it." 

"You can know what you want and have no clue what you want." 

"You don't have to agree with everything you say." 

• Permission #1: TO

• You can ...

• It's okay ...

• You're okay if ...

• Permission #2: NOT TO HAVE TO

• You don't have to ...

• It's ok if you don't ...

• You're ok if you don't ...

• Permission #3: INCLUDING OPPOSITES

• You can and not ...

• You can some of the time ...

• It doesn't have to make logical sense ...

• Permission #4: EXCEPTIONS

• That's the way it is, except when it's not ...

• You can swing between this and that ...

From Bill O'Hanlon, Inclusion Therapy

The Healing Power of Self-Compassion

Bruce Miller by Della Chen. Tomales Bay, CA

An easy way to calm and comfort yourself when you're feeling badly is through soothing touch. It seems a bit silly at first, but your body doesn't know that. It just responds to the physical gesture of warmth and care, just as a baby responds to being held in its mother's arms ... If you notice that you're feeling tense, upset, or self-critical, try putting your hand on your heart, or tenderly stroking your arm or face, or gently rocking your body.

 What's important is that you make a clear gesture that conveys feelings of love, care, and tenderness. If other people are around, you can often fold your arms in a non-obvious way, gently squeezing yourself in a comforting manner. Notice how your body feels after receiving the hug or caress. Does it feel warmer, softer, calmer? - Kristin Neff

Read more here